The Savage Marquess (7 page)

“I had better return and inform Lady Ismene—”

“No, you may as well stay here. Think of the scenes. Think of the tantrums!”

Lucinda shuddered.

“Well, I had better go and make myself ready. This is your home now. You had better look about. I do not seem to have the knack of keeping servants, so at the moment I am reduced to Chumley and the daily scrubbing women.”

He stood up and stretched his arms above his head. His dressing gown fell open to reveal his broad naked chest.

Lucinda quickly looked away. “What have you done?” screamed a voice in her head. But when she looked up again, it was to see him leaving the room.

She sat for a long time, very still, listening to the silence of the house, telling herself that all she had to do was to open the door and run away.

But she thought of her father and she at last forced herself to admit that the marquess had been more than generous in accepting her odd provisos.

A little warm feeling of gratitude toward this odd rake began to spread through her body. She decided to explore, and went down to the kitchens first.

She looked in dismay at the greasy black hole that was the main kitchen. There was an antiquated open range for cooking, a rough table covered in old scraps of food, greasy walls and dirty china and filthy pots. Obviously it had not been used for cooking anything lately. The hearth was cold. Chumley must have made the coffee on a spirit stove abovestairs. There was a tolerably clean baize apron hanging behind the door. Lucinda took off her pelisse and bonnet, tied on the apron, and proceeded to light the fire. A little scrubbing and cleaning would take her mind off her fast-approaching nuptials.

The marquess had shaved himself and dressed by the time Chumley returned and silently handed him a special license and a gold ring. “Where am I to be married?” asked the marquess.

“St. Edmund’s in Dove Lane, Holborn, my lord.”

“I suppose it will have to do. Hardly the most salubrious neighborhood. You had better be brideman, Chumley. Can you raise some female to act as maid of honor to Miss Westerville?”

“I have already arranged for a Mrs. Grant, a sidesman’s wife, to perform that service.”

“You may raise your wages, Chumley.”

“Your lordship is most kind. There is one problem, however…”

“That being…?”

“Miss Westerville is no longer in the saloon.”

“If that silly unmentionable epithet has fled the coop, I shall track her down and wring her neck.”

“May I say, my lord, Miss Westerville did not strike me as the sort of lady to do anything so impolite. Had she changed her mind, then I am sure she would have informed your lordship first.”

The marquess stood frowning. Then he said, “Follow me.”

He clattered down the stairs with Chumley after him. To Chumley’s surprise, his master continued on down the back stairs to the kitchens.

“I thought so,” said the marquess with satisfaction.

Chumley peered over his master’s shoulder.

The fire was blazing in the kitchen range.

The table was scrubbed, and shining dishes gleamed in serried ranks on the dresser. From the scullery came the sound of splashing water.

The marquess, followed by Chumley, walked through to the scullery. Lucinda was diligently scrubbing pots.

“I want a wife, not a slave,” said the marquess.

Lucinda straightened up and brushed a damp tendril of hair from her forehead. “I will not be able to engage any kitchen staff if the place is left in the disgusting mess in which I found it.”

“May I say, my lord,” put in Chumley, “that the mistress has the right of it. The last housekeeper I tried to engage took one look at the state of the place and had the vapors.”

“Then why didn’t you clean up the place yourself, man?”

“Because in a servantless house, I have a damn sight too much to do as it is, my lord,” snapped Chumley.

Lucinda waited, trembling, for the marquess’s wrath to break over poor Chumley, although surely such insolence from a mere servant deserved any master’s wrath.

The marquess contented himself with casting a malevolent look at his valet. “Are you going to stand there delivering yourself of jaw-me-deads all day? Or are you going to see me married?”

“We shall leave as soon as the mistress is ready.”

“She’s not the mistress yet and won’t be if someone doesn’t hurry up!”

“Come with me, Miss Westerville,” said Chumley.

Lucinda followed the valet out and up the stairs to the dusty bedchamber. A toilet table had been hurriedly cleaned and supplied with cans of water and fresh towels.

“Thank you, Chumley. Is it so hard to get servants?”

“Yes, miss, but a lady in the house will make life different.”

He bowed and withdrew.

With the cleaning of the kitchen, Lucinda felt she had burnt her boats. The work had kept her frightened thoughts at bay. A calm descended on her as she washed her face, brushed her hair, and straightened her dress.

When she entered the saloon to join the marquess, she noticed he looked tolerably healthy and his eyes were clear. He appeared relaxed and amused.

She tied on her bonnet and allowed Chumley to help her into her pelisse, both of which she had left in the kitchen.

The marquess held out his arm, his green eyes glinting down at her.

She timidly took his arm. “There you are!” he said bracingly. “We look quite like an old married couple already.”

From then on the day took on an even more unreal appearance for Lucinda. She felt as if she were acting in a play. The church was dark and smelly and her maid of honor, a squat, mannish woman, reeked of gin. Lucinda had attended many weddings with her father and knew the service by heart, but the marquess needed to be prompted. He became cross and fidgety and began to exude a restless air of boredom.

When they were finally declared man and wife, he planted a brief and careless kiss on Lucinda’s cold mouth and led her hurriedly from the church.

“Thank God, that’s over. If I’d known what an infernal bore it was going to be, I doubt if I’d have faced up to it.”

“Where to, my lord?” asked Chumley as they climbed into the carriage. Chumley was acting as coachman.

“We’d better go to Clifton’s,” said the marquess.

“No,” protested Lucinda.

“Why not? You need your bits and pieces, and Ismene can hardly eat you with me around.”

Ismene was in a sulky temper, which was growing worse by the minute. She had been informed sometime earlier by Kennedy that Lucinda had gone out and had not returned. She had descended to her father’s study to tell him of Lucinda’s thoughtless and selfish behavior, only to find her father closeted with Lord Chamfreys.

“If you see Miss Westerville,” said the Earl of Clifton to his pouting daughter, “tell her that Chamfreys is taking Mr. Westerville into his care and will take Miss Westerville with him when he goes to the country.”

This, of course, added to Ismene’s fury. The Cliftons had no hold over Lucinda now.

She was pacing up and down the drawing room, thinking out ways to make Lucinda’s life utterly miserable before she left, when a footman popped his head around the door and asked in a worried voice whether the Earl of Clifton was available.

“I don’t know where he is, James,” said Ismene crossly. “Try the library or the study. Is someone called to see him?”

“The Marquess of Rockingham, miss, and—”

“Send the marquess in here, immediately,” cried Ismene.

The footman bowed and withdrew. The countess, Ismene’s mother, then fluttered in.

“Mama!” cried Ismene. “Do but listen! Rockingham has called and is asking for Papa. He means to propose.”

“Then he must be sent packing,” said the countess.

“No, he must not,” said Ismene, stamping her foot. “He is rich and handsome and I want him.”

Behind her, the footman once more opened the door.

In a loud voice he cried, “His most noble lordship, the Marquess of Rockingham, and Lady Lucinda, Marchioness of Rockingham.”

And that was when Ismene began to scream.

A quarter of an hour later, while the sounds of Ismene’s hysterics still resounded through the house, Lucinda sat in a corner of the Earl of Clifton’s study and heard with a sort of numbness that Lord Chamfreys had already made arrangements to care for her father.

The earl had burst in upon the scene in the drawing room, had slapped his daughter for the first time, and had had his hair pulled by his enraged countess. Extricating himself from the grip of his angry wife, the earl had ordered the marquess and Lucinda to follow him to his study. There he told the marquess that, as he was in effect Lucinda’s employer, he should be told the reason for this rushed wedding. The earl’s eyes cast a cynical look at Lucinda’s waistline, quite forgetting that if Lucinda had fallen from grace, she would hardly be showing signs of a pregnancy after a few days in London.

In a bored, insulting voice, the marquess said that he and Lucinda had come to the arrangement of marriage because he wanted a wife and couldn’t be bothered with the fatigue of looking for one, and that Lucinda found her life as companion to the Lady Ismene quite horrible.

The Earl of Clifton gave a little sigh. He felt he should cry out against this insult to his daughter, but, under the gaze of the marquess’s world-weary eyes, found he could not. Then he told Lucinda of his recent visit from Lord Chamfreys.

Lucinda sat twisting the gold wedding ring on her finger. She need never have gone through with this charade of a marriage. Now she was trapped. But through her misery like a ray of sunlight came the sudden thought that Lord Chamfreys in his way was as unreliable a prop as the Cliftons. Should her father fail to rally quickly, then Lord Chamfreys might quickly become bored with the responsibility of looking after him.

“Well, that appears to be that,” said the marquess restlessly. “Would you be so good, Clifton, as to have my wife’s belongings sent to our address?”

He rose to his feet. Wife, thought Lucinda. How… final.

They traveled in silence to Berkeley Square. “Make yourself at home,” said the marquess abruptly. “I’m going out. Be back sometime. Come along, Chumley.”

The valet hesitated. He thought it was a bit hard on the new marchioness to be abandoned in a servantless house, but he knew the marquess would quickly become savagely bad-tempered if forced to stay at home.

Left to herself, Lucinda wandered through the empty rooms, wondering what to do, hoping desperately that this new, erratic husband of hers might not decide to get drunk and forget his promise of leaving her free of marital duties for six months.

She took off her bonnet and pelisse and then went down to the kitchen to resume cleaning. Hard work would keep her mind off her troubles.

She scrubbed and washed and polished until every plate and pot and pan was shining. There did not seem to be any food at all in the house. She was about to go upstairs to continue her labors when she heard a tremendous knocking at the street door.

Half-afraid it might be Ismene calling to continue berating her, Lucinda went reluctantly to answer it. A liveried footman stood on the step. “I have a message for the Marchioness of Rockingham,” he said loftily.

“I am she,” said Lucinda, blushing slightly as the footman’s haughty stare changed to one of amazement as he surveyed my lady in all the glory of tousled hair and baize apron.

He bowed and handed her a letter. “Are you to wait for a reply?” Lucinda asked.

“No, my lady,” the footman said. His hand was outstretched. But Lucinda did not have any money to tip him. She smiled instead and shut the door in his face. She carried the letter into the saloon and sat down and began to read it. At first she could not believe her eyes, so she read it again.

In a bold scrawl, her husband had written: “Gone to Paris for a time. There is money in the desk in my room but everyone will give you credit. Rockingham.”

Lucinda burst into angry tears. It was too much! She stared through the blur of her tears at the grim room, and became aware of the lonely, oppressive silence of the house.

There was only one thing to do—throw herself on Lord Chamfrey’s mercy.

She was about to go upstairs to look for the money in the desk so that she would be able to pay for a seat on the stagecoach, when there came another volley of knocking at the door.

Hoping against hope that it might prove to be the marquess, she ran to answer it. Kennedy stood on the step, her eyes red with weeping.

“Why, Kennedy!” exclaimed Lucinda, falling back a step so as to allow the maid to enter. “What’s amiss?”

“My lady pulled my hair and scratched my face,” said Kennedy, turning her left cheek to show Lucinda the marks of the attack. “She said it was all my fault—that if I had not prettified you so much, you would never have caught the eye of Rockingham. I could not bear it any longer. I am come to ask you, my lady, if you be in need of servants.”

“Oh, I am. I am,” said Lucinda gratefully. “Come in, Kennedy.” She opened the door of the saloon and ushered the maid in. “I cannot even offer you tea. I am sure Chumley has some hidden somewhere, but I cannot find it. I was about to run away to the country, but now, if you will help me, perhaps I might be able to manage. I have no servants
whatsoever.
”

“But where is my lord, your husband?”

“He has upped and gone off to Paris and taken his only servant with him, Kennedy, so I am quite alone and do not know where to begin. We need meat and groceries and a full staff of servants.”

“So you will engage me, my lady?”

“Yes, Kennedy. You will be lady’s maid, after we get other servants.”

“I shall return to Lord Clifton’s,” said Kennedy, “and I’ll collect my things. Then I shall call on the butcher and grocer. Then I shall call at Mrs. Pembery’s residence in Mount Street. I have heard that her butler, a good man, is unhappy in her employ. I know Lord Rockingham found it nigh impossible to engage servants, but with his lordship away, and with you being the marchioness, it should not be difficult. If I can get this butler—Humphrey, his name is—if I can get him, then he in turn can engage suitable people.”